


every new dawn

by ryyves



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Character Study, Comfort, Healing, Other, Post-Man In Glass, Tender - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:08:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27273196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryyves/pseuds/ryyves
Summary: Peter cuts his hair. Juno helps him.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 15
Kudos: 74





	every new dawn

“Let’s get you a haircut,” says Mag kindly. It’s not the first thing he says to Peter, not in the first ten or even one hundred, and already Peter has had the tour of Mag’s temporary home. Already he has had water to drink and to wash his face with, already the clothes he wears seem out of place with the life this man offers. And the stories have come already, too. Reminiscences of a father Peter never got to meet but who gave him his name. Already tales of a world growing larger as Peter watches.

But to think of a salon, his back to a plush chair, someone wetting his hair down and dragging it out with their little scissors, looking at him for half an hour. That lavishness, that sort of focus, unnerves Peter. Though, of course, Mag’s eyes, there at the kitchen table, unnerve him too.

Peter imagines what those eyes looked like to his father, a decade ago, if they burned with the same fire, if they saw through him just as easily.

“It’s fine,” grumbles Peter. Instinctively his hand goes up to his hair, long enough now to hang over his collarbones, heavy and dark. He is old enough that it is always greasy, and today he keeps it pulled loosely back. “Give me a knife and I can do it myself.”

He has no doubt about the power of his charisma, his capability to slide into a persona and laugh his way through the dance of it, the give-and-take of conversation, the current. Sometimes he rolls dissimilar traits together and puts on a show for himself, testing his ability. It occupies the time he isn’t spending on using those skills. He’s not a child anymore and he’s learned to play his charisma, to rely on his tongue as much as his fingers. No longer can he run through a crowd, slipping into pockets and sliding around legs. His world is changing before him, which means he has to change with it.

He doesn’t feel like a child, anyway.

And that’s how Mag found him, of course. Peter had chosen the wrong person to con, his voice still high enough to pass for a younger boy, and he’d wanted to make the most of the last year he had left. Whatever god had given him this miracle, had given him a man offering him a father and a purpose and a real salon, some place you didn’t have to swindle your way out of, Peter almost considers thanking them.

But he is not the pious type, and it passes.

“Absolutely not,” says Mag. “I have no doubt that you can, given that your hair doesn’t touch your toes yet, but this is the start of your new life, Peter. The least I can do is get you a proper haircut.”

“I don’t want one,” says Peter, but Mag’s hand is on his head, messing up his hair. That’s enough to make Peter quiet. Is this what fathers do? he wonders, and he laughs. “That’s not really my… I don’t belong there.”

“Sure you do. As much as I do.”

When Peter laughs again, Mag smiles. His eyes crinkle up, and Peter notices that he has dimples, just like Peter, though Mag has two while Peter’s is a small crater on his left cheek.

The salon is in a neighborhood Peter doesn’t often frequent – the city is vast, its winding streets following no pattern he has been able to discern. He has memorized them all – from above, from inside. In dreams he’s flying down alleys, but they always break into new alleys that he doesn’t recognize. He wakes and he’s still lost. He wakes and Brahma still doesn’t want him.

The interior is white and chrome, with tall, soft chairs and wide mirrors above counters adorned with products. It smells fresh and green, so green Peter glances back out the door with its promise of familiarity. His gaze meets Mag’s while Mag steers him to the counter.

“This one needs a new look,” Mag he tells the receptionist. So Peter goes along.

The hairdresser sinks Peter’s head into a basin of warm water and rubs shampoo into his scalp. It is gentle, the fingers soft and sure, and Peter closes his eyes. Yes, he could get used to this, a world where he doesn’t have to prop a compactible mirror on his knee or a rock or a railing and drag a knife through strand after strand, a world where warm water washes the shampoo from his hair, where a warm towel covers his ears. This has never been a world that belonged to him.

This is what luxury feels like, Peter decides. His face smiles with bright teeth from the mirror while his hairdresser runs gel through the newly shorn strands. He stares at himself as long as he can while his hair goes from a dark wave to short and springy. He studies every angle. It’s a smooth cut, waves laying atop each other, fading to a short buzz cut in the back.

Mag says, “My boy, I’ve missed you,” from the lobby, but Peter isn’t listening. He can’t see Mag’s face in the mirror, can’t see those big bright eyes, just the hints of his shoes. Nice shoes, not made for the wear of walking but for special occasions, the sort of shoe you only bring out thrice a year. Mag’s voice is larger than life, still, boisterous and bright. Peter believes everything he says.

And when the hairdresser says, “What do you think?” Peter beams.

* * *

Once, a long time ago, Peter Nureyev thought the world could be beautiful. Once he was thrilled by the simple luxury of salons with sweet-smelling soap and white walls, charmed by men who promised they’d known him longer than he had known himself. But he hasn’t cut his own hair in years. There are many things he will not admit to himself, and this is one: he still can’t shake that first taste of decadence, of honest warmth, of customer-service indifference and hands massaging his head and all that heavy weight falling off. All his hair in a ring on the floor. He looked three years younger, gaunt still but glowing-eyed.

And how many times in all those years did Mag sit patiently with him, trimming both of their hair with stolen barber’s scissors in that house Mag always kept tidy, the blinds always drawn, the door locked? How many years did love look like that? Mag could focus so long as Peter kept his eyes on the streets outside, on the movement of foot traffic and Brahma’s endless watchful eyes. Peter tidied up the scraps of hair, his dark, Mag’s a shimmering blond, the creeping past sheared from their bodies.

And when Mag told him stories, his voice was cautious, as if he were trying to figure out the very best way to say it. But everything he said was perfect. Everything he said fell across Peter like a lifeline. He filled Peter with promises, and Peter touched his short hair and believed him.

* * *

Peter has been told he has a memorable face, and he has spent hours and countless palettes of eyeshadow trying to obscure it. Trying to wipe himself out of a room. He is good at the rest of it, of course, at changing his voice and smoothing out his expression, and pretending he has never been anyone but this job’s fake identity. Still, Mag tells him to smile with his lips closed.

Mag told him. Because Peter didn’t stay long enough to learn where New Kinshasa puts its dead.

He takes enough names to gag on. He swallows his own. He sleeps with a knife under his pillow and another under his mattress, or a knife under his rolled-up jacket and another in the mouth of his shoe. He builds a resume in his head and files it away. Employers don’t spend more than a cursory glance on trivialities like that, and, besides, if Peter has a reputation to keep, it is that he has no reputation whatsoever.

He grows his hair out through several awkward pixie cuts, grows it long and shears it when it brushes his clavicles. He can’t commit to a look; he can’t commit to a name, a lilt in his voice. It is the waiting that frustrates Peter, that span of months between a careful, gelled curl and a long, straight curtain when his bangs brush his lips just enough for him to chew on.

The older he gets, the more a perfect style could make or break the persona, the lazier he grows with the upkeep. The creases that were supposed to be laughter lines turn out sad. His reflection stares at him with heartbreak in its eyes. He lets his hair grow for a year and learns a series of elaborate braids. He puts concealer under his eyes. He tries on dress shirts he can’t afford and buys them anyway. Under the counter, that is.

And when he has the luxury, when he has the money, when he’s on a friendly planet and feeling reminiscent, he sprawls back in a barber’s chair and lets them run their sticky gel through his hair. After all this time, it still feels like a luxury. Soft air, soft hands, the soft smell of fruit and flowers. Which means he can’t count on it.

* * *

In his room on the _Carte Blanche,_ Peter sharpens the knife. Between his three mirrors—a hand mirror, a compactible built in with a comb he never uses, and a light that bounces off the window—he can see the whole way around his head. He stands in the only clean spot of the room, the piles around him tall as Martian tombs. His hair is heavy again, long enough to tie into a knot at the base of his skull, and he is considering a complete make-over, a cut short enough to gel back. He’s worn it that short before, left thin tubs of expensive product in one pocket or another to adjust his look on the job, and to be honest, he looked rather good like that.

He wonders what Juno would think if he went short again, if he would find it cute. He wonders if he can still pull it off, the bounce of it, the loose strands. If Juno’s fingers would slide through it more easily, would close around it without tugging, would tug it, then, and pull Nureyev’s head down to kiss him deeper. What it would feel like for Juno’s hands to reach the backs of his ears without sliding through miles of hair, Juno grumbling into Peter’s mouth about how much of it there is.

The knock doesn’t mean much; it’s a small ship with a smaller crew, and someone is always banging on the bathroom door. Someone is always calling a meeting or arguing up and down the hallway, some stream is always running in the background, just beneath the sound of voices. There’s always someone who wants to become a part of his business.

“One moment,” calls Peter. He adjusts the strand, drags his fingers down from his scalp to the ends, and cuts. There is a sudden lightness as three inches fall to the floor in a neat clump. “Come in.”

The door slides aside with a rush and it’s Juno, his collar wet from the shower, his shirt sticking to his chest. He holds a towel in one hand, rubbing absently at his ear.

Reaching up to separate another section of hair, Peter says, “Hello there, Juno.” He turns his gaze back to the mirrors, keeping Juno’s shape in his periphery. It is not that he is wary—these past few weeks have done much to ease the cautious tension in his shoulders, although, if he is being honest, enough old hurts sit in the spaces between them that Peter doesn’t always want to breach it, and not all of them are Juno’s fault. Another lock falls to the ground. Peter can’t see Juno’s face, but he doesn’t need to. “As you can see, I’m a tad busy, but if you need me—”

“You’re cutting your hair,” says Juno incredulously. “With a knife.”

“What else would I cut it with? My toes? Buddy’s hairdryer?”

Juno snorts. “You’re not funny, you know that?”

“I’ve done it a million times,” Peter tells him. “It’s no more dangerous than shaving. If you’re worried about me—”

“Not fair.”

“But if you were, I can assure you, I’ll be fine.”

“Mind if I,” says Juno, and he stops. He steps inside and the door slides closed, and then he takes his bottom lip into his mouth. Peter’s eyes dip to those lips, his beautiful mouth, and then Juno rubs his towel over his face.

Peter considers. He pulls the knife away from his hair, letting the shortened strands fall against his neck. “So long as you don’t distract me.”

“You’re kidding. I’ve seen you spin two knives and catch them both by the handle. Show-off.”

“Oh, well, if you want to learn, I’d be happy to teach you.”

“Hand-eye coordination,” Juno says, gesturing at himself, and leaves it at that.

They are renegotiating these patterns of intimacy, though if Peter is honest with himself, they never really learned them in the first place. It is a dance neither of them knows the steps to, and if Peter has learned anything over his career, it is to always come prepared. To memorize every footstep, to predict every holdup. Juno stands in the doorway, his eye like a live wire, scanning the room but mostly scanning Peter, a knife an inch away from his cheek, curls of dark hair on the floor around him.

What this means is that Juno stops in Peter’s room before his own after a shower. And Peter is embarrassed.

Juno crosses the room, passing behind Nureyev where he stands before the window. “We have scissors, you know.”

“What?”

“In the kitchen. You could use those.” Juno sinks onto the bed, but Peter has his mirrors arranged just so and he can’t afford to move. From where he stands, he can see Juno, dark against the pale towel he holds, passing behind him, a blur of motion. Peter is regretting the choice to cut three inches, though he knows he’ll make it up in a few months. He cuts another section.

“That’s disgusting,” Peter says, but he is focusing and it comes out clinical. The light isn’t as good as he’d thought when he started, and the shirt he’s wearing is far too dark. “Do you know what Jet’s touched with those?”

“Are we having the same conversation?” says Juno, but he’s laughing. For a second, Peter is startled. He’s usually the one, in any conversation, laughing at his own jokes, laughing tears into his eyes while someone stares blank-faced at him. He is used to dead air, his voice the only thing that could breach it. He is used to dead eyes.

But he’s getting ahead of himself, so he closes his eyes and slots the new thought in among the hundreds of similar thoughts he hasn’t had time to examine in depth. Juno is looking at him, and that means he has to look back. How long does he have? How many heartbeats before time runs out and he’s just empty space in front of Juno?

“Let me do it,” says Juno gruffly.

“What?”

“Let me cut your hair.”

It’s harmless, and it means everything. It falls into the air, falls onto the ground and shatters. Peter draws in a sharp breath. He sets the knife on the windowsill and turns to Juno, his hands carefully clasped. One side of his head is heavier than the other, and he isn’t sure if he’s tilting his chin. The last person Peter let close enough to touch his hair he doesn’t want to ever think about again. Still, the thoughts rise like solar flares. Still the careful drawers in his mind. Still the rows and rows of dark doors with no handles. It’s not that Juno’s hands have never been behind his ears, but that it is easier to have fingers on the back of his neck while his mouth is occupied.

“Hey. C’mere.” Juno’s voice is soft and open. It’s the sort of voice Peter could fall into. The space between them is too much. There is too much bed beside Juno, and it is far too messy. Peter realizes that his mouth is open, so he takes his bottom lip into his mouth. He doesn’t miss the way Juno’s eyes dip. There is so much on the floor between him and Juno, and Peter doesn’t know how to cross it. They are too new to this.

“You,” says Peter. He clears his throat. “You want to cut my hair?”

Juno shrugs. “I know my way around an electric clipper.”

Grinning, Peter says, “Now I’m certain that I’m not inclined to let you anywhere near my head.”

“Shut up and hand me the knife.”

They both laugh, and the distance shrinks. On the windowsill, the mirrors catch the light and bounce it off the ceiling. He palms the knife.

“I don’t need all those,” says Juno, gesturing at the mirrors. “I can see you just fine.”

“Anything you wish,” says Peter.

When Peter sits on the bed, Juno slides back to make room for him. Juno crosses his legs, his knees resting against Peter’s back. Peter knows better than to call this uncomplicated. If Juno is half as aware as Peter is of every point of contact, of every point devoid of contact, he doesn’t let it show. His hands slide through Peter’s hair. Peter hands the knife back hilt-first. Juno’s grip on it is shaky at first, but then the cool metal slides out of Peter’s hand and something else falls into his stomach.

A moment of hesitation as they both reposition their bodies, as Juno runs his fingers through the ends of Nureyev’s hair, much closer to his neck on the left side.

Juno says, “So you just… cut?”

“That is the idea, yes.”

“I just…” He draws out a handful of hair and considers it.

“Yes, love. Think of it as your first time on a job. You don’t have to be perfect.” Peter doesn’t always understand this new Juno, softer and stronger than he was the first time he was Peter’s, but he is always in awe, and he is always trying to.

“No pressure,” Juno laughs.

“You did ask.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.”

Juno’s hands are warm on Peter’s shoulders. Juno brushes off strands that have caught on Peter’s neck, the touch soft and electric. He spreads the towel, still damp and smelling of shampoo and Juno, around Peter’s shoulders, tucking it close and pulling the hair overtop. Peter wants to lean back, to surround himself completely with Juno’s warmth, but he knows if he wants a haircut, he has to be patient.

“You do this a lot?” says Juno. “With a knife?”

“Not particularly, but it had gotten too long to let slide. The hair, that is. Regardless. It’s an old habit I’ve never quite been able to shake.”

The tenderness with which Juno’s hands run through Peter’s hair, his fingernails bitten down, with which he holds the strands taut before slicing through them, overwhelms Peter. Peter closes his eyes. He doesn’t have to see his room, the closed door, the window still bright as a mirror; he lets Juno do the work without complaint. He closes his eyes and falls into it.

But when the knife slices through Peter’s hair, Juno tugs. Peter takes in a sharp breath.

“You okay?” says Juno. “I’m not hurting you?”

“No,” Peter murmurs. “I’m all right. I just.” He sighs. “It’s been a while, that’s all, since someone else…”

Juno says, “Old lovers?”

The knife is still, but Peter doesn’t risk turning his head. Now that Juno’s hands are on Peter’s shoulders, the room looks small again. Just big enough to hold them, to keep them safe. “No, actually.”

A silence follows, and, mercifully, Juno doesn’t fill it.

It goes on like that, great swathes of hair falling onto Peter’s lap and onto the bed beside him. Juno cuts off more than Peter had intended, but Peter doesn’t complain. The soft pressure on his shoulders, the gentle tug on his scalp, they feel familiar, yes, but also safe. He keeps his eyes closed. In the dark behind his eyelids, he can see Juno’s motions, the way he pulls out hair, the way he saws with a hand unfamiliar with knifework. The blade glittering for Juno alone.

“What did I do to deserve you, Juno?” murmurs Peter. The soft, strong hands go slack for a second, and Peter’s hair falls against the back of his neck. Juno doesn’t say anything, just runs his fingers up from Peter’s neck. Peter shivers.

“I ask myself the same question every damn day. Except about you, of course.”

“Oh, of course. I never took you for the sort of person who adored your own company. Though it does seem that you’re more comfortable with it now.”

Juno sighs, and his breath tickles Peter’s shoulders. It’s not a sad sigh; at least, Peter doesn’t think it is. It’s warm on the back of his neck. He thinks Juno is going to say something, and then Juno says, “Turn toward me so I can get the front.”

Peter shifts, and Juno has to shift backward himself to accommodate both their bodies. Juno is so close, and for a second, he reaches out with the hand not holding the knife and strokes Peter’s cheek. He is beautiful, with all his scars and his sad mouth and that intense eye so warm and bright on every part of Peter he can see, and Peter has never felt safer. Has never felt more at home. Peter doesn’t close his eyes—he doesn’t want to miss a second of Juno Steel’s life, not again—but he presses his cheek into the touch.

“You going to?” says Peter.

“Hm?” says Juno, so Peter looks pointedly at the knife.

Juno has to bring the knife in close against Peter’s neck. It takes all Peter’s self-restraint not to tip his head back, but he has to maintain the angle of his chin so Juno can see where he’s cutting. But this time, their knees touch. This time, Peter gets to see the look of concentration on Juno’s beautiful face, chewing on his cheek and leaning in to check the angle.

“You’re a natural,” says Peter, and he does not touch Juno’s arm. There will be time for that after they’ve cleaned up the mess. There will be time to kiss him to laughing.

And Peter can feel the past loosening its hold on him, just a little. Its fingers are still on his arm, but Juno’s breath is warm as he snips off the last long strand. Juno puts the knife on top of the pillow. It glitters there, not a weapon anymore but a marker of trust.

Peter doesn’t file it away. He lets Juno’s hot fingers slide across his scalp, through hair that barely brushes his jaw. He keeps his eyes on Juno, and when he takes clumps of hair in his hands and holds on tight, he lets this become a home.


End file.
